


Sketching Happiness

by chucks_prophet



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Artist Sam, Awkward Flirting, Charlie Ships It, Fluff, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, M/M, Seattle, Shy Sam, Sketches, Some Plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-29
Updated: 2015-06-29
Packaged: 2018-04-06 17:58:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4231380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chucks_prophet/pseuds/chucks_prophet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He thought about his current situation. He’s sitting in a bistro with a man who God clearly broke the mold for (not to mention a few of the hardest stones), and he’s looking at a potential job offer that any kid scrapping the streets with his talent would die for. Ordering big would make him look presumptuous, but ordering small would be offensive.</p><p>He settled for hot cocoa.</p><p>Or the one where Sam meets Gadreel Alexander, a big time marketing executive with an eye for gifted artists.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sketching Happiness

People tend to romanticize the past more often than not. Sam Winchester, he’s an artist—a realist in the traditional sense. He sees things for how they are.

So when Dean insists _No, Sammy, you got it all wrong,_ G.I. John was a homebody that wore his heart on his sleeve for his kids, Sam sketches a homely man with his head slightly craned, two suitcases in his hand. One is labeled “Family”, the other: “Essentials”.

Sometimes, he’ll draw his brother. He’s not great with caricatures, but for Dean he’ll make the exception. He draws Dean as a hot air balloon. His helium-filled head is angled at the imminent wind while Sam is in his basket, leaning precariously over the edge. It’s an interesting picture, but that’s not what invites the eyes. His heart plays the role of the fire. It’s the muscle of the locomotive, and it’s about three sizes from exploding all over the page.

Other times, he draws his best friend. For this he uses color, dabbling with the brightest blue he can find. Castiel has his head to the invisible white sky with this big, gummy smile on his face not unlike the solar eclipse: It’s rare in form and lights the earth like a beacon. Like Sam, he’s an artist, so he draws him a smock with a thousand different colors mortared on it. He’s always happiest when his hands are dirty.

Landscapes are the hardest. The sky alone holds infinite beauties. Trying to capture the trees and the birds and the ruins from the cityscape was, in the words of said best friend, like catching a hurricane in a butterfly net, but harder. Any art requires patience, but he also has to be conservative with his time. It’s not possible to spend all evening mapping out the sunset when there’s only a half an hour before there’s a glitch or two in the scenery.

One day, he thinks, as he stares out into the bleary distance. He’s sitting on a public bench, waiting for the bus to arrive. He has his sketchbook in one hand, a pencil that’s gradually dulling in the other. It’s raining hard today. Hail is coming down like cats and dogs, pelting blameless bystanders and echoing off the tops of passing cars. Sam’s not one to complain. As long as the icy wrath of Seattle stays a safe distance away from his sketchbook, he’s fine.

Of course, you couldn’t have your cake and eat it too. A gust of wind blew by and swept up a couple loose leaf sheets tucked chaotically inside his hardbound. Sam nearly jumped from his seat to reclaim them, only to end up on the concrete. Luckily, his backpack came forward and caught his fall before he could successfully swan-dive into the sidewalk.

It took a minute for him to find his sea legs, but once he did he was met with a pair of curious green eyes under an umbrella. “I take it you disabled Amber Alerts on your phone,” the stranger laughed. He held in his hands the runaway sketches.

“Yeah—I mean, no, I didn’t, I bus.” He paused, taking in what he’d just said, and then substituted it for a viable sentence. “I mean I take the bus.”

Human interaction to Sam was what Latin was to a school of fish; the concept was lost somewhere in evolution. It didn’t make it easier that the man standing before him was friggin’ gorgeous. Judging by the way he carried himself in his Vincent Vega tribute suit, he was older than Sam. His lips curved into a smile as slick as the pavement beneath them. He had his eyes on his drawings, now a little wet and slightly crinkled, but safe in the hands of the rightful owner.

“I don’t mean to talk out of turn, but those are really good,” he said. His words bled a particular truth that caused the tips of Sam’s ears to turn pink. “Are you professional?”

“Far from it actually,” he replied as his lips curved into a shy smile, revealing his dimples. “It’s just something to pass the time.”

If Sam didn’t know any better, he’d suspect the guy was disappointed. His suspicions were cleared a moment later when he said, “That’s too bad.”

“Why’s that?”

“Well, I’m in the business of art,” the stranger claimed, lending out the hand that wasn’t occupying the umbrella. “Gadreel Alexander, Eden’s Edge Marketing.”

Sam froze with the weather around him. That would explain the suit. Eden’s Edge controlled just about every corporate franchise there was—Biggerson’s, the Gas N’ Sip, heck, they even endorsed that one incestuous coffee commercial that ran through Christmas. If there was a force to be reckoned with that was bigger than the city government and smaller than global warming, it was them.

He reciprocated his handshake. “Sam Winchester, Clumsy College Student.”

Sam felt criminal for checking him out. People like him didn’t have eyes for people like Sam. People like him had their eyes on the almighty dollar.  Still, he’d be insane not to take him up on his pseudo offer. If Dean were here, he’d kick him in the ass so hard he’d be hacking up diamonds for a week. In the end, he’d be selling his soul for his name in the skylights, but Robert Johnson had to start somewhere, right?

 “Well, Sam,” he said, flashing him a cogent smile, “Care to accompany me to brunch?”

***

The Grind was a five-star café sandwiched between two boutiques on a lonely boulevard. The ambience was atypical from a corporate giant like Biggerson’s, which bustled with whipped waiters, ill-tempered customers, and music so loud it took twenty synchronized conversations to drown out.

The smell of freshly brewed java and age-induced mildew invited the noses of inbound patrons. The Grind was a part-time bookstore that permitted paying customers to an archive on everything from _Cosmopolitan_ to _Catcher in the Rye_. Overall, it was both a welcoming and refreshing atmosphere. There was a tacit peace about the place.

Even the waitress had a bounce in her step as she hailed the two new customers filing in. “Table for two, Mr. Alexander?” she perked.

“Charlie, please, you know I hate formality,” Gadreel was quick to reply.

The server, Charlie, waved her pen at him. “And I hate corporate assholes, but I manage to sop up my tears with the extra lettuce.” She eyed the boy with shaggy brown hair, her brow lifting in curiosity. “Who’s the cutie at eleven o’ clock?”

Sam’s face blanched before he could introduce himself. There are only two people that call him cute. Cas when he wants to encourage him and Dean when he wants to _dis_ courage him. Charlie wasn’t lacking either. She had crimped red hair, green eyes, and a certain childlike charm that screamed adventure.

“This is Sam, my…” Gadreel paused, casting a glance at the twenty-something before settling on the term ‘associate’ with an unmistakable blush. “Sam, Charlie, we go back.”

“And back we shall go again, right this way,” she said, guiding them through a maze of tables and booths until they were seated near the back of the eatery. Charlie handed them their menus and, before turning on her heel, supplied Sam with a kind hand on his shoulder and a soft-spoken _quid pro quo_ : “Order’s on the house if you get him laid.”

Sam shifted in his seat. “So, what’s good?” he coughed; only abetting his question with a slew of ums and uhs. Gadreel—or Mr. Alexander, to be less presuming—seemed unfazed.

“Everything’s good _,_ ” he said, accentuating the last word with the flick of his menu. “The question you should be asking is what’s _great._ The French toast is out of this world.”

Sam mused that over, along with the breakfast steak and homemade buttermilk pancakes. Then he thought about his current situation. He’s sitting in a bistro with a man who God clearly broke the mold for (not to mention a few of the hardest stones), and he’s looking at a potential job offer that any kid scrapping the streets with his talent would die for. Ordering big would make him look presumptuous, but ordering small would be offensive.

He settled for hot cocoa.

After a quiet minute of sipping and crunching, Gadreel asked how long he’d been drawing.

“Pretty much ever since I could pick up a pencil,” he replied, silently praying to whoever had their ears on that this wasn’t a formal interview. He was _not_ good with interviews. Bunking with his brother and his fiancé, Benny, proved that factoid.

Gadreel took in this information, then asked, “Do you mind if I see more of your work?”

Instead of answering, Sam took out his sketchpad and handed it to the handsome stranger. Trying not to stress when their fingers brushed in the process, he shifted his focal point to his clotting cocoa where he buried the blush swarming his cheeks. If Gadreel was in any way perturbed by the universe’s wicked schemes, he didn’t show it. He sifted through the fabric-soft pages at his leisure.

“I started out drawing things from cartoons, and then sort of transposed into realism,” Sam explained when he felt like he was swimming in silence. “Realism is my favorite type of art.”

Gadreel’s eyes continued to rake the pages before him. Sam never felt smaller in his life. He’s never opened his work to the public. The closest to a second eye he’s gotten is when Dean steals his journal, and that’s usually when he’s over-the-moon intoxicated because he beats on his chest and yells, _“Big Brother is watching you!”_ like he’s trying to prove he’s not an uncultured swine by skimming one passage from Sam’s eighth grade reading list.

Evidently, Sam’s never been one for sharing. His drawings were personal to him—they were a piece of him that society didn’t own. Giving that piece of him away was like cutting a sliver of dough from a pizza. Once one piece is gone, everyone has to have their slice.

Sam hadn’t noticed he’d been lost in fantasy camp until Gadreel had his finger over one of the lead figures in his book. “Who’s that?”

Upon closer examination, Sam saw the depiction of his father. “No idea. Just, uh, came to me in a dream,” he lied, finding his cocoa and bringing the borrowed cup to his lips.

“I’m sorry,” Gadreel replied, leveling his eyes with Sam’s, “truly.”

There was an honesty he honed on that made it sound like he was talking from experience. Sam nearly burrowed through his jaw trying to suppress the memory. Luckily, he’d flipped to the next page, wherein four people stood around a fireplace with lopsided Santa hats. The date was etched into Sam’s brain: Christmas Day, 2014. “This is your family.”

Sam nodded, leaning over the table to go through the introductions. “That’s Bobby in the corner. He hates pictures. The guy who looks like he’s had a little too much eggnog is my brother, Dean. The guy he’s kissing on the cheek is his fiancé, Benny, and the one next to him is Castiel, my best friend.” He shakes his head with a laugh as he goes to say, “I swear they’re the only normal ones in the family.”

“You’re saying you’re not normal?” Gadreel inquired with the quirk of his lip.

Sam shrugged, and then, with a faint smile, said, “I don’t really wanna be.”

They wasted the rest of their date on another round of warm beverages and flaky toast—which Sam was eventually persuaded into trying and, alright, if bread was a religion he’d be converted. Sam’s book was still open, only it was Gadreel whose hand had graced a pencil. He took his turn at drawing the boy before him, which turned into a fit of unmanly giggles because Sam ended up looking like a hairy penis with baby fetuses for ears.

It was nearing two o’ clock when Charlie came to their table to collect their payment. They hadn’t noticed the dallying staff crowding around the cashier’s table, watching the two with reverent smiles. Both men were flushed to the bone, Sam even more so when Charlie came back with a torn up receipt, leaned down and whispered, “Close enough.”

Once they were a safe distance away from the prying eyes of The Grind, Gadreel worried on his lip as he asked Sam if he wanted to arrange another meeting—one less formal.

Sam grinned so wide he broke a muscle. “It’s a date.”

From then on, he didn’t have to worry about missing another day of college or standing in the pouring rain waiting on the bus—not when he had an office with a skylight and a new face in his sketchbook.

**Author's Note:**

> The Grind was taken from a how-to website on creating restaurant/café names under the examples panel. Originality is overrated, anyway.


End file.
